> My belief is that Sony et al are not worried about bootlegs of Brittany
> Spears as much as having NO CONTROL over who the public picks as the next
> pop start.
You think the *public* has control over that? Yeah, yeah, people vote with
their wallets, but before they do that the candidate CDs have to be made
available for puchase. The record companies control that, and they also
control the amount of promotion that a particular candidate gets.
Promotional agencies like MTV play right into the herd mentality of pop
music buyers, convincing a few that the herd is buying album X. Those few
buy album X, and then the rest of the herd follows suit. Essentially people
are *told* what to buy.
Do you think that P2P is going to damage this control system?
I'm not too distressed by that control, though. It's still a free enough
country that I can buy something else if I want to. What truly distresses me
about the (pop) music industry is this:
- Everything's a love song. Yawn.
- Everything's so simple and easy to understand. Yawn.
- Performers are sex symbols first, and musicians second if at all.
- Nobody writes their own songs.
- Nobody cares about albums.
So when I'm not listening to Beethoven, Mahler, et al, I listen to Rush,
Dream Theater, et al.
--
Jeffrey Sharp
Received on Sat Dec 14 2002 - 12:15:00 GMT